Maelstrom
by MightySpaceDwarf
Summary: The Maelstrom. While close to all the three major powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, only the Federation took enough interest in it to colonize. But when a star goes supernova long before its time, the region erupts into conflict, and Commander Theresa Solheim and the crew of the USS Dauntless are caught right in the middle of it.


A/N: This started out as a novelization of Star Trek: Bridge Commander. However, as finding the dialogue would be a pain and, honestly, the plot wasn't all that good, I've decided to make this a story of its own, using Bridge Commander as a rather loose inspiration.

**Prologue - Sunshine**

**Maelstrom**

**Vesuvi Two - Standard Orbit**

USS Dauntless was, by most sane definitions, a colossal ship - at almost six hundred fifty meters in length, the gargantuan starship dwarfed almost all Starfleet ship and most vessels operated by the Federation's neighbours. However, while massive, the Dauntless seemed to possess a grace that belied its size, something that made people hold their breath in amazement when they witnessed the ship for the first time.

Now, the vessel was in standard orbit over Vesuvi Two, a world upon which the Draegos colony was situated.

A shuttlecraft - a Type-4 Transfer Pod, the Icarus 2, as the markings on the hull identified it - left the cavernous hangar bay at the rear of the main saucer. The tiny, sub-warp craft, not much larger than a small bus, drifted away from the mothership, before activating its impulse engines, slowly turning around to pass over the Dauntless' saucer section and heading off towards one of the orbiting terraforming stations.

_"First Officer's Log, Stardate 55212.3. It's been six days since our arrival in the Maelstrom region. Captain Wright has left for the Vesuvi Two terraforming station, to investigate the reports of the unusual solar activity that has hampered colonization in the region. Due to... hmm... said unusual solar activity, the Captain has decided to use the shuttle rather than the transporters. End Log."_

"Unusual solar activity?"

"Sounds better than 'smuggling Romulan booze for his son-in-law', don't you think, Miguel?"

Commander Miguel Diaz, the Dauntless' Operations/Science Officer shrugged and returned to working on his console.

Commander Theresa Solheim turned back to the view screen and leaned back in the incredibly comfortable captain's chair. She was a woman of average appearances, not someone who would really stand out in a crowd.

The bridge was a standard for the class - the conn and ops stations at the front (occupied by Ensign Kiska LoMar and Lieutenant-Commander Miguel Diaz, respectively), right in front of the viewscreen; the Captain's Chair was in the center, flanked by the First Officer's chair to the right and the "guest" chair to the left; the tactical console (occupied by the CTO, Lieutenant Felix Savali) was located behind and above the 'command island', built into the apex of the wooden handrail encircling the rear and sides of the island. Aside from that, there were a few additional consoles, manned by a small number of officers and NCOs.

"Well, it's true - the star is causing some serious interference with the transporters. I think we could do a pad-to-pad beam, but..." - said the Conn Officer, Ensign Kiska LoMar, a young Bajoran, couple years out of the academy - "Anyway, Icarus Two is approaching the station"

Theresa simply nodded in response to the Ensign's report; she only had to sit back, relax and keep the chair warm - this was routine, after all.

Routine. Normal day at work on the Dauntless.

Dauntless... she was here for the last four months, on her third assignment as first officer. It was a prestigious assignment, to say the least - while she wasn't the Enterprise, Dauntless was still a Galaxy-class starship and one with a distinguished service record, to boot. After she finished her tour of duty on this ship, she might be given a command of her own. Perhaps even one of the Flight-II Akira's?

"Ma'am, we're getting some very strange readings from that star..." - Miguel reported, prompting Cornelia to raise an eyebrow, focusing on the Ops Officer.

"Define 'strange', Miguel?" - she queried, her curiosity piqued. A part of the Science Department before transferring to Command, she was always curious about anything 'unusual', 'strange' or 'uncommon'.

"I'm... not sure, there appears to be a serious instability in the core... fusion reactions appear to be accelerating, exponentially." - he reported, a frown creasing his brow, his fingers flying over the console. Theresa stood up and walked to ops console he was occupying and looked over his shoulder; he was right, but... this couldn't be right! It looked like the star was ageing several thousand times faster than it should and worse, the process was continuing to accelerate. She had no idea what could have caused this - trilithium caused fusion reactions to halt immediately. And this simply couldn't be natural - main sequence stars, hell, stars in general couldn't age that fast!

But this one was. Based on the rate of reaction acceleration, destabilization rate...

_'The star's about to go nova.'_

She turned on her heel, facing the Tactical Officer, Lieutenant-Commander Felix Savali.

"Felix, shields on stand-by!" - she ordered and turned to the helm - "Ensign, get the Warp Drive ready..."

"Commander!" - Miguel suddenly interrupted - "Emergency transmission from the Captain! On screen."

The image of the planetary horizon and space beyond the main view screen was displaying was replaced by Captain Wright's face. The image was distorted, but still clear enough for Theresa to see the Captain was terrified.

_"Commander, the star! Its core is destabilizing."_ - he warned. - _"It's about to go nova!"_

"I know sir, we're going to get you out." - she informed him - "Miguel, beam the Captain out."

"Ma'am, I can't get a transporter lock, the solar interference is disrupting..."

"Kiska..."

_"No!"_ - Captain Wright's sudden interruption made her take a step back. - _"You need to get this ship out of here! Helm, get the ship to Warp!"_

"Commander, I am reading a coronal mass ejection from the star. It's going to hit us in forty-seven seconds" - Miguel warned, as his console beeped in alarm. Theresa grit her teeth, realizing that there was no time to get the shuttle, she had to...

_'No. Hell no.'_

"Negative, sir, we're getting you out of there." - she repeated, as she sat in the Captain's chair - "Kiska, intercept course for Icarus 2, get the shuttle within our shield bubble!"

_"Dammit, Commander...!"_ - Wright yelled, angered. With a single press of a button, Theresa cut the connection. Silence fell over the bridge, as everyone stared at the first officer in muted shock.

"Felix - shields up. Helm, take us in!" - she ordered, again, ignoring the stares. After a second's hesitation, Kiska executed her order.

It was already too late. The Dauntless' engines flared, accelerating the ship in its orbit, but Icarus 2 and Captain Wright were long beyond saving. Before the Dauntless crossed above the terminator line, the coronal mass hit.

A wave of radiation and plasma, sent out in all directions by the Vesuvi star, struck the colony. The Dauntless, protected by the fourth planet's mass and her own, powerful shield array weathered the impact, absorbing most of the blast, ablative armour plating dissipating any bleed-through. The pod, Icarus 2, lacking both the planets protection and any real shielding was quite simply vaporized, turning into a cloud of plasma. The orbiting terraforming stations were torn to pieces, some of these vaporizing, some thrown out of orbit. Vesuvi Four... the planet's surface turned to hell; the magnetic field offered little protection from an event of this magnitude; the planet's atmosphere turned to superheated plasma, the surface transformed into a sea of molten lava.

There could be no survivors.

Commander Theresa Solheim could only stare in shock at Vesuvi Two. The surface was burning. The remains of the terraforming stations were hurtling out of orbit. Icarus 2 was gone.

Captain Wright was dead.

The ship lurched as a piece of a terraforming station struck the shields, shaking her out of her shock.

"Helm, bring us about!" - she ordered - "Get us to Warp speed!"

"Ma'am, Warp engines not responding! Safety override."

_'Oh God, what the hell?'_

"Full impulse, then!" - she barked out and braced in her chair. This was going to be one helluva ride - "Miguel, what the hell is wrong with the Warp Drive?"

"There is a massive subspace disturbance, emanating from the planet. I can't determine the cause."

Theresa could only blink in surprise, because before she could form any kind of coherent thought, Miguel spoke again:

"The star has gone nova."

The Dauntless' impulse engine flared as the ship turned about, its stern facing the planet. The ship begun to accelerate, racing away from the planet and the wave of radiation and plasma that was the Vesuvi star just moments ago.

The wave struck the planet. The stellar body was bathed in enough energy to power a thousand ships for a thousand years. It didn't explode, it didn't crack apart. It just melted down, much like a metallic ball subjected to a plasma torch, layer after layer melting down, peeling away, gas and liquid blown away into space by the hurricane of plasma and radiation. There were no debris larger than a man's fist.

The front of the shockwave reached the Dauntless, despite the ship already having accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, bombarding it and slowly eroding the weakened shields, bleeding through them and dissolving the armour, one millimetre after another.

"Picking up an unidentified object warping out of the system" - Miguel reported - "I can't get a good reading on it."

Theresa, her teeth gritted and fingers tightening on the chair's armrests couldn't care less as the helmsman tried to clear the shockwave. In fact, Diaz's calm was getting on her nerves.

She thumbed the intercom button, calling engineering.

"Chief, can you give us warp speed?"

_"What? Are you kidding, Commander? With that subspace disturbance, we'll lose half the warp coils, just breaking the Warp Barrier! Do you know how many safeties would I'd have to override?"_ - Chief B'rex's voice sounded incredulous -_ "I.. we could get a Warp Core breach if we try!"_

"Well, then, it's a simple choice - either we take the chance we blow up or we all die in a fire!" - she barked out, irritation seeping into her voice. B'rex could have a really bad sense of priority, at times.

_"I... point. Overriding Warp Drive safeties!"_ - the Chief Engineer acknowledged.

"I have warp drive." - Kiska announced - "Engaging at Warp 5!"

For a second, Dauntless seemed to stretch. The nacelle grilles shone a brighter blue, as they bled off the massive heat build up and then, the mighty vessel accelerated and disappeared in a flash as she achieved superluminal velocities, leaving the oncoming wave of plasma and radiation far behind.

Theresa was gripping the armrests of the captain's chair hard enough for her knuckles to go white. She could her the Dauntless' hull creak under the stresses of an unstable warp field, shake as the straining inertial dampers failed to fully compensate for field variance, saw sparks fly as power conduits overloaded.

_"Bridge, this is Engineering"_ - B'rex's voice sounded over the intercom -_ "If we don't drop out of warp in twenty seconds, the Core is going to breach!"_

"Understood. Miguel, are we..."

"We're clear of the shockwave, ma'am." - the Commander reported, not waiting for her to finish.

"Kiska..."

"Disengaging warp drive, ma'am" - the Ensign reported and on the viewscreen, the star streaks turned to singular points as the ship dropped out of warp. A relieved 'whew' could be heard over the comm as the Chief Engineer let out a breath.

_"Well... we're alive"_ - the bolian stated - _"Could someone explain why did a star just blow up? "_

Theresa took a few deep breaths and slowly released her death grip on the armrests. B'rex needed an explanation, but... she needed a status report, first.

"Status report of the warp core, Chief?" - she asked after a moment. Around the bridge , tension seemed to fade, as crewmen exchanged reports and nervous comments.

_"Stabilizing, but don't expect more than ten per cent output."_ - B'rex informed, after an annoyed sigh - _"Tell Captain Wright we'll need three new containment field emitters, a new primary deuterium injector and a pair of new nacelles. Hey, where's the Captain, anyway?"_

Silence fell over the bridge as the crew around exchanged looks, unsure what to say. Luckily for them, Commander Theresa Solheim had the conn. Saying it was her job.

"The captain..." - she paused, her throat dry - "Captain Wright is dead."


End file.
